Gravity
by ass-sassin
Summary: The day she defied gravity was the day he first saw her – truly saw her, without the hindrance of basketball or data, or other worldly distractions.


**A/N: I don't own Kuroko no Basuke, nor the song 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles that it's inspired by. **

* * *

The day she defied gravity was the day he first saw her – truly saw her, without the hindrance of basketball or data, or other worldly distractions.

Ever since she was a child she'd been drawn to him. She wasn't foolish enough to think it was fate – red strings and myths did nothing to make her believe that there was anything to their meeting aside from coincidence.

Her father and his mother had been friends in university, and kept in touch even after they'd started families of their own. She could say his name before her own, recognise his face before her grandparents, and understand his chubby-cheeked grins towards her better than she understood the dark behind her eyelids.

He knew her, too. Knew her moods and precisely how to tie her hair into the plaits she so loved. He could predict her smiles and spot her blush from a mile away.

Sometimes he got sick of her voice – the way she'd praise him and chastise him as though she were his keeper.

And when he played basketball it was Satsuki who stood on the sidelines and watched – cheered until her voice was lost, cried at the losses and brought poorly made honeyed lemons to soothe his disappointment.

And when she'd began gathering data he could only gape at her, sit back on his heels in astonishment as she gave him a play-by-play analysis of the game, predict the plays and even players themselves.

She followed him to Teiko, followed him to Touou, followed him everywhere as though he were a magnetic force, and she a paperclip. But she was just that – small in comparison to his light - his light, drowning out everything around him, his presence that of a King in a room of slaves.

Magnetism wasn't the word – because magnetism wasn't sure enough.

It was gravity. Sure and strong and inevitable.

It happened so slowly she didn't notice it. The obnoxious thundering of her heart every time he was near, the way his grin sent a flurry of butterflies wild within her. His snide comments drove her mad; his laziness irked her as ever, but made her smile all the more.

By the time she realised she was falling in love it was too late.

She was standing on a platform at a ledge of a cliff – a pulley the only thing preventing her fall. But with every pull upwards, with every pitiful tug towards the sky, the stage lurched back and she was closer to the ground.

Years passed, and their senior year meant she was almost there – almost finished the agonisingly slow tumble from grace.

Satsuki didn't want to fall – she didn't want to fall any further than she had.

But with every crooked grin, every jealousy-inducing girl, every game of basketball, she felt the pulley slipping from her grasp.

Instead of small lurches – she was plummeting the final stretch, screaming and fighting, clinging to her fragile strength as though her life was dependent on it. But her strength was torn from her, taken with the updraft that whistled past her so warningly.

An updraft of ex-girlfriends and lazy habits and a careless attitude.

And when she finally hit the ground, she cried – because he'd always had a tendency to look towards the finish line for his prize.

His winnings were often girls – sometimes they'd be a new pair of sneakers, a day out with his friends, his university scholarship.

But he always had said 'the only one who can beat me, is me', and so he'd never looked to her – never looked to where she sprinted to the finish line alongside him, struggling and sore, but undeniably devoted to supporting him.

At the bottom of the cliff, she'd looked around in her desperation – and it was then she saw the staircase. It was precarious and jagged, undoubtedly dangerous, too. But it was better than the risk, better than facing the agony she'd experienced when Kuroko began dating Kagami and her mother left her father.

So she'd begun to climb, slowly and steadily, keeping to her studies, retreating from basketball step by step until she was far enough to turn her back and walk away. And she was almost at the top of the cliff, almost there when graduation came.

She passed with flying colours, and was accepted into Harvard University on a scholarship.

It was then that he noticed. He realised she didn't fall into step beside him as he reached the finish line. He realised that she was almost out of love, when he was stuck knee-deep in it with a girl whose number he remembered better than her name.

Because he was at the bottom of the cliff – he always had been, after all. He shouted to her, begged her to come down, because he didn't see the point of anything at the finish line if she wasn't there to enjoy it with him.

But his calls fell on monotonous voicemail inboxes, his letters remained in a stack on his desk because he was too petrified to send them over to her house. As he sat on his bed the day before her flight to America, he realised something.

His whole life, he'd been whole. He'd had everything he could ask for – and his personality lacked only motivation and modesty. But when she left, he'd lost his courage – because she'd always been the one to call him a coward, directly or not, and he'd always drawn upon her strength to pull him through. If he was gravity, the ground – then she was the sky, so open and limitless.

And when he looked up, all he could see was her.

She flew that day – leapt off the staircase and soared through the skies, soared away from him, defying him, defying gravity.

But she knew she couldn't fly forever. Not for lack of strength, or will – but because she didn't want to. By the time she'd finished studying she was in her twenties, and her return to Japan was her homecoming.

And on the plane home, as she felt the aircraft descending, spiralling to the Earth – she knew she was going down, too.

But this time it was on her own terms – she was touching down because she chose to, without the use of pulleys or staircases or a red string of fate.

* * *

"…_make sure to check the overhead baggage compartments for any personal belongings. This is your Captain, I hope you enjoy your time in Japan."_

Satsuki thought her teeth might break. Grown women weren't meant to tremble so, were they? Her friends and family were nothing new! There was, of course, the issue of her absence for six years – six homesick years over in a country where her only consolation was basketball.

The cold blast from the air conditioning sent goose bumps down her arms as she hurried through the wobbly corridor, ready to step foot on solid ground at last. She regretted wearing nothing but a flowing yellow sundress when she knew the weather would be colder in Japan – but the excitement at the prospect of home had made her forgetful.

The excitement at the prospect of navy hair and a crooked grin and that one cologne – no! It was her want for home, her need for her family that-

But her trail of thought was broken as she stepped out of the terminal and headed for the final security checks. It didn't take long for her to get through, and soon she was almost at the baggage area.

And then –

"_Satsuki!"_

Her heart halted for a moment as she stumbled to a stop. A thousand moments, a million memories, a whirlwind of his smiles, their arguments, his name, shouted angrily and happily and miserably, their sleepovers and shopping trips, their basketball games, schoolyard hours and everything in between.

But she didn't cry – no, because it wasn't as though she were falling from a great height, after all.

Finally, her foot had touched the ground after its steady descent, and she could breathe in the air, smell the sea and the Earth and the sky.

Before she could change her mind, she turned around and began walking towards him. Her family was there too – but their faces blurred into the background along with everyone else and all she saw was him.

At last she stopped before him, dress fluttering around her ankles, hand aching from the weight of her hand luggage.

He was smiling.

And after a moment, she smiled too – because they were different and all too much the same. If he was her gravity, then she was the air he needed to breathe, she was the freedom of the sky, lifting him and keeping him sane.

But they were both at the finish line, and Satsuki knew as much when she decided to drop her bag at his feet.

"Satsuki, what're you-"

She cut him off with a kiss – a kiss that had been brewing, simmering just beneath the surface since she was fifteen years old. It was tender, soft and calm.

It didn't matter that their family and friends were right there.

They had reached the finish line, and were ready for the end of it to lead to the beginning of something else.


End file.
